Thursday, 20 September 2012

The Para-Olympic Closing Ceremony: vol 3, Act 8.

Obviously this should be read alongside volumes 1 and 2.



Act 8

This saw the start of the Coldplay concert and to make sure everybody got a good look at them this began with the band simply performing “Us Against the World” on stage while the rest of the arena remained relatively calm and still. As I think they were throughout the ceremony Coldplay were accompanied by a deaf choir signing out the words to their songs. At a para-Olympics that had been defined by the Twitter hashtag #isitok designed to take a light-hearted (and at times downright filthy) look at what is and isn’t acceptable to say about people with disabilities I like to think the deaf choir was a bit of a sick joke because while I accept that there are different degrees of deafness I have to say that if you can’t hear then music’s not really for you. Of course that feeds into a much more serious debate about disabled rights because even with all the technological advances and assistance (such as making buildings wheelchair accessible) that we give to disabled people the fact remains that there are things that they simply will never be able to do.

As Coldplay began to play “Yellow” the lighting in the arena changed to more yellowish and reddish tones in order to signify the changing of the leaves as summer gives way to autumn. As raves are really a summer activity the big rigs/floats left the arena to make way for more autumnal pastimes. This started with ballrooms dancers (and two women in wheelchairs because it was the para-Olympics) performing on the Sundial stage. In Britain autumn sees the arrival on our TV screens of the two massive Saturday night entertainment shows – the X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing. As people had been saying for weeks that the stories of the para-Olympians would blow the sob-stories that play such a large part in the X Factor out of the water the ceremony decided to celebrate its more upmarket (BBC) rival. This fed into the debate about how to keep the public interested in the minority sports featured in the Olympics in the four years between games and help the athletes who are all amateurs make some money. TeamUSA’s women’s footballer Hope Solo and her impressive mouth led the way by appearing in the US equivalent show Dancing With The Stars and this series of Strictly Come Dancing features TeamGB Olympians Victoria Pendleton and Louis Smith although no para-Olympians were invited because sadly dancing is just one of those things that people in wheelchairs just can’t do. Britain also wanted to make the world aware of this particular series of Strictly Come Dancing because Victoria Pendleton was used as a metaphor for the Duchess of Cambridge during the Olympics and Britain hopes to keep that metaphor going all the way to the end of the series in late December.

Fitting in with the ceremonies other themes of flame and the ancient tribes of Britain the ceremony moved on to that other great British autumnal tradition Bonfire Night (November 5th) which I explained in the first volume. This was signified by Coldplay playing “Up in Flames” while performers/dancers performed some sort of tribal dance while waving flaming torches and spears. Personally I thought this bit looked a bit gay but rather than being intentional I think that this was merely a reflection of the fact that there are only so many male dancers in very tiny and very tight hotpants you can assemble in one place before it’s starts looking a bit gay. The tribal dance sequence climaxed with a giant metal face rising out of the stage and being set on fire. This face could have been interpreted as being any number of ancient Greek philosophers in a reference to the Celtic language which is often mistaken for a tribe was actually spoken all the way from the west coast of Ireland right across Europe to the Balkan countries of which Greece is one. The face could also have been interpreted as Odin the Norse (Viking) god of war in a reference to the Norse invasions of ancient Britain along with most of the rest of Europe including Greenland. It could also have been a reference to the fact that Odin was the father of Thor whose legend was recently made into a film starring Natalie Portman who also starred in a film called V for Vendetta which played around with the story of Guy Fawkes and Bonfire Night. Therefore all those people you see at protests wearing the white V for Vendetta masks along with the Anonymous hacker group are all entirely Natalie Portman’s fault.

However rather than looking like anything specific I think the face was meant to represent generic tribal art. This is an absolutely massive topic in its own right because every month some government somewhere announces the discovery of some new relic and asks us to marvel at the great significance of something that is often just what someone scribbled on a wall to keep their children amused. A particular expert in this field was my old form tutor at Croydon College Wilfred Leng whose main job was as a senior research fellow in ancient British tribal culture at Oxford University. Although it has really changed since the September 11th attacks Britain’s intelligence services (MI5/MI6/GCHQ) have traditionally recruited officers from a sort of old boys network at Britain’s more prestigious university such as Oxford and Cambridge so Leng was teaching at Croydon to act as a local recruiter in the first step of a very long and arduous selection process. Having made it quite clear early on in the year that I had no intention of applying to either Oxford or Cambridge for exactly the same reason he really thought I should our weekly pastoral meetings had become something of a tedious formality for the both of us. Then one day as I was getting something out of my bag a bit of paper with a ‘Celtic’ knotwork that I was considering having done as a tattoo dropped out. As this was Leng’s major passion in life he picked the piece of paper up and proceeded to tell me all about the image in more detail then I could ever need or remember. Known as an Ulbstar Cross it has no religious significance at all dating back some 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ (Christianity) and as far as anyone can tell was simply used as a sort of corporate logo such as the Olympic rings or the para-Olympic Agitos to indicate which tribe was living in a particular area. The tribe that used this particular symbol were known by the Romans as “Picts” or “painted or tattooed people” and were famous for their blue war-paint that was said to both numb pain and stop blood loss which was probably best displayed on Keira Knightely in the film King Arthur. As Picts were such ferocious warriors that they ended up wiping themselves out by killing each other few of the other ancient British tribes along with invaders such as the Romans and Vikings wanted to fight them. Therefore the areas marked with an Ulbstar Cross were very rarely attacked by marauders and pillagers so amongst villagers it came to be known as a symbol of protection. Obviously hearing a back story that good was enough to convince me to get the tattoo done on my back between my shoulder blades. One of my classmates under Leng actually went on to sign a record deal with the Hellcat label run by Lars Frederiksen but that’s another story.

I got the tattoo done by a Brazilian house/squat mate of an Israeli/British girl I was knocking about with at the time who introduced me into a great many things including her girlfriend and a very messy pre-fame Russell Brand. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a tattoo done but it basically involves you sitting very still while you pay someone to inflict pain on you and trust me the spine is the most painful area to get a tattoo done because the needle sometimes hits nerves and gives you shooting pains from your toes to your teeth. As this Brazilian artist was more used to working on black and Hispanic skin my pale white back was one of the best canvasses she’d ever been given to work so decided to do almost the entire thing by hand meaning the tattoo took a total of six hours spread over roughly two three hour sessions. Obviously during all this time we got to talking and once we’d got through all the formalities like hygiene standards and HIV/Hepatitis infection control (Brazil’s are actually higher then Britain’s insisting on the use of a surgical face mask) and all the usual small talk about favourite bands/books/movies  we got around to talking about her recent pregnancy and her plans to move back to Brazil  which obviously led into a very long and detailed conversation about Brazil and Brazilian culture to the point that I’m pretty sure that if I was ever in the country I could walk into a certain street in Sao Paulo and be introduced to this very cute (judging by the parents) 12/13 year old boy/girl who is no doubt behaving like a bigger bastard then they were conceived as. Further proving that she wasn’t a particularly observant Jew this Israeli/British girl got a Buddhist chant tattooed on her lower back at around the same time. Showing my age this was all happening around the time of the Al-Aqsa or second Palestinian Intifada so my very casual relationship with this girl was sort of defined by us hearing on the news that a bombing had taken place and then holding our breath until we found out who’s been killed to the point where her sister missed the Dolphinarium attack by about all of ten minutes. Actually it feels a bit odd talking about her in this context because we actually parted ways with none of the malice or hatred of all these other stories. I simply went off to do my thing in Brighton while she went off to do her thing in Brazil and knowing her nose there’s a good chance she’s still there ducking national service.

After the flaming face disappeared and the smoke began to clear Coldplay were left on stage to play “Paradise.” The heavily painted and battered piano that Chris Martin was playing on reminded me of those pianos/organs that you used to get at old fashioned fairgrounds. This was a reference to the fact that there are really three main ‘tribes’ of travellers in modern Britain; New Age Travellers (ravers), Irish travellers/gypsies like you get at Dale Farm and circus/fairground types that are known as Carnies in the US. It must be said though that there’s actually a lot of overlap between the three groups because they’re not as obsessed with racial purity as the people who study them. Therefore the image of the burnt circus being left after the big rigs had been cleared away by the fire seemed to be an attempt to drive a wedge between the ravers on one side and the gypsies and carnies on the other by blaming the hardship they’ve suffered under the 1994 Criminal Justice Act (CJA) on the ravers whose provocative behaviour forced the government to act. Although I can’t speak for them I doubt that argument will get far with the gypsies and carnies because they should know better than anyone else that in this life there are people who will go for you whether you provoke them or not and the British government have been going after travellers since the 1960’s – some 20 years before the ravers got going. One group that is very obsessed with racial purity and particular protecting the male bloodline are the Monarchies who insist that a Royal bride must be a virgin on her wedding day. Therefore the issue of virginity had been an undercurrent to the ceremony from the moment the Royals arrived and Sinnott started climbing his massive pole although I can’t imagine why I was thinking about it at that moment.

One other performer who has used the burnt circus imagery is the US singer P!nk especially in the video for her song “Funhouse.” Now I have to confess that Pink is one of my guilty pleasures with a couple of her songs – especially ones from that album she did with Tim Armstrong from Rancid – are bought and paid for and one my iPod. Actually I’ve been keeping an eye on her ever since I saw her doing one of those really boring round of press interviews to promote her first album because you could tell even then that there was going to be trouble. Also my probably most significant girlfriend (the one who lives in Bristol) does look a bit like Pink especially when she dyes her hair that shade of shocking pink. When she doesn’t she looks more like Ruby Wax. Also when I was breaking up with the Canadian that Pink song “Last to Know” came on the radio at just the wrong moment sending me off into a teeny, tiny temper tantrum.

Apart from playing an unnervingly large role in my dating life Pink very nearly qualified for the US Olympic gymnastics team and her live shows are famous for having lots of spectacular aerial acrobatics so the next part of the ceremony was dedicated to her with lots of aerial acrobatics. These peaked with the arrival of humans appearing to float into the arena in what looked like giant versions of those Chinese lanterns that have become something of a trend amongst British people with limited taste (Essex) who use them to mark all sorts of special occasions like weddings, birthdays and funerals and invariably end up setting fire to their own or someone else’s home. Apart from taking a swipe at Essex this was meant to evoke memories of the series of live shows that Pink did at the near-by O2 Arena (Millennium Dome to you and I) to promote discussion about possible future uses for the Olympic stadium because with the O2 Arena so close by it stands little chance of being used as a concert venue. Also before the ceremony there was rumours (later proved to be true) that Rihanna would be using high wires/aerial acrobatics in her performance. Now I don’t know what the relationship between Pink and Rihanna is but working in the same industry I’m guessing they’ve met more than once and there could be a bit of rivalry between the two. So the sight of Rihanna ripping off Pink’s act raised the prospect of there being one hell of a catfight. This was made worse by the fact that in the week immediately after the ceremony Pink would be in London to promote her new album at the same time as Rihanna. Apart from playing a small gig at the iTunes festival Pink’s trip to London involved appearing on Channel 4 (C4) chat show “Allen Carr: Chatty Man.” Now although I think she’s only actually seen it once or twice somehow the legend has been written that this is my grandmother’s favourite TV show meaning that the presenter and all the guests entirely responsible for her mental wellbeing making it probably the definition of a tough gig not least because apparently I was talking over the entire recording.

The choice of the song “Paradise” was perhaps a little unfortunate because it features the lyric; “Para, Para, Para, Paradise” over and over again. At the para-Olympics this was a bit like standing in front of a huge group of disabled people and chanting “Cripple! Cripple! Cripple!” at them over and over again. However if you saw some of the Tweets in the hashtag #isitok you would know that this was purely intentional, very tongue in cheek and fitted in perfectly with the tone of Channel 4’s games coverage.

No comments: